This Friday
by jadenanne7
Summary: Raymond Reddington used to love Fridays, and with Lizzie's help, he may learn to love them again.
1. Chapter 1

So this is my answer to a PM from Lily Luna Snape Riddle, who sent me a prompt too good to pass up! This will be written in 3 parts, and hopefully posted over the next few days.

Thanks to Hestia and Lourdes, who keep me sane and try to drive me crazy at the same time. Love ya'll!

I own absolutely nothing. This fact keeps me up nights.

Raymond Reddington could remember when Fridays were his favorite days. Fridays meant freedom. Freedom from work, from phone calls, from well-meaning coworkers… Fridays meant movies on the couch with his wife and daughter, followed by some celebratory alone time in which Carla would lock the bedroom door and…

He hadn't had some good and proper Friday alone time in quite a while.

Yes, Fridays used to mean a number of good things. Now… now Red wasn't so sure. For the last several months, Friday had brought nothing but trouble. It was a Friday the first time Lizzie told him to go to hell.

It was a Friday the second time, too.

Red was pretty sure that this little impromptu visit to her motel room was going to warrant a third time. He was going anyway. It grated on whatever nerves he could still feel that a fully furnished apartment sat empty at the top of the Audrey, waiting for its owner to grow up and move the hell in. Red could not afford the luxury of settling down in one place. Lizzie could. And she most certainly would.

This particular show of childishness was about to end.

Sliding out of the backseat of his SUV, Red winced at the sight of the dingy motel that could not have been worth the thirty bucks a night Lizzie was shelling out for it. "Keep it running, Dembe. This won't take long." Filth seemed to radiate from the roof all the way down to the sidewalk, but Red was probably the only person besides Dembe in the parking lot that noticed.

Or maybe he was just a snob. He wasn't sure anymore.

However, there was one thing he was absolutely certain of. Someone was smoking pot on the premises.

Classy.

The closer he got to Lizzie's room, the stronger the pungent smell seemed to get. If he could smell it then certainly Lizzie could smell it. As he knocked on her door, he wondered just how hard it was for her not to bust her hippie neighbors. Cop mentality really died hard.

"What the hell are you doing here? Don't you know it's Friday night?"

Or maybe Lizzie murdered it.

"Don't you have a life? Some crazy party you could crash where people are too fucked up to care that they're dancing with number four on the most wanted list? Or is staring at me like I have two heads your idea of a good time?"

Red couldn't have looked away if he wanted to. His Lizzie… his sweet, straight- A, law-abiding, badge-toting Lizzie…stood in the doorway of her room, wearing naught but a pair of black bikini undies and a tank top, dangling a crudely rolled joint between her fingertips.

"It looks like you're having quite the party right here," Red quipped, pulling himself together long enough to realize that he was not the only one entranced by Lizzie's nearly naked form. She was drawing stares from every eye in the parking lot.

It may have had a tad bit to do with the joint she was currently re-lighting, but for Red, it was the underwear. It would always be the underwear.

Taking a confident step forward, Red stretched his arms out to frame the doorway, resulting in Lizzie stumbling rather ungracefully back into the room.

"Hey! I didn't invite you in," she complained even as she flopped onto the bed and rolled onto her back, relighting the joint and taking a hard drag.

"Well you're certainly inviting some sort of trouble. May as well be me. Don't you know to ask who it is before you open the door?"

"Why should I? It's always you. I'm surprised you even bother to knock anymore." Adding to the thin haze of smoke that permeated the room, Lizzie blew an impressively large smoke ring up toward the ceiling. "Invading my privacy has kind of become your forte."

Invading her privacy? Red liked to think of it as keeping a watchful eye on his young protégé. Anything more than that and the word 'obsession' would be thrown around and he couldn't allow her to think that. No matter how true it was.

"Manners, Lizzie. A gentleman always knocks."

"Well, if we're minding our manners," Lizzie started, lazily moving her legs so that they were lying awkwardly to the side, "have a seat."

On the bed. With her.

How could he refuse an offer like that?

Without removing his coat or his hat, Red took a seat on the very edge of the bed, scrambling to remember what it was that brought him to her motel room in the first place. Oh yes… the Audrey.

"Don't tell me you have a case for me at this time of night. I might seriously hand in my resignation and work somewhere 9 to 5 like a normal person." Lizzie's hand fumbled with the lighter and Red found himself leaning over to take it from her, lighting the joint himself as she hollowed out her cheeks and…sucked.

"It's actually a social call," he smiled, dreading the conversation.

"Do tell."

"We have a small matter of an apartment to discuss…"

"Oh FUCK!" Lizzie interrupted, clearly not loving the conversation any more than Red did. "How many times do we have to talk about this? How many times do I have to tell you no?"

Red grinned. "This is precisely my point. You don't HAVE to say no. You CHOOSE to say no, which means you are choosing to live like a vagrant in a hovel, and I thought you were smarter than this."

A blush played across Lizzie's cheeks and Red knew he had hit his mark. Insulting Lizzie's intelligence was something he was loathe to do, but if it would get her out of the gutter…

"And it's not charity. I know you can afford a place of your own, but since you've made no move to purchase one, I had to take matters into my own hands. Watching you live like this is simply abhorrent to me. Something had to be done."

No sound came from Lizzie's side of the bed for several moments. Stealing a peek, Red saw that her eyes were closed, but her fingers played idly with the joint. When she finally spoke, her voice was small and tired.

"If I take this from you, and I make it my permanent home, that means that I am tied to you forever, and I'm not sure that I want to be."

The laughter escaped Red's lips before he could stop it. "That's a little dramatic, don't you think?"

Lizzie blushed and crossed her arms over her chest, but stayed silent.

"I highly doubt that you're going to stay in the apartment forever…just until your life gets back to normal." That earned him an incredulous look from the incredibly high woman on the bed, but still, she said nothing. "Besides… the apartment is yours. In your name. My name is nowhere near it." Lizzie raised her brow and pursed her lips. "You can have pets. You can get Hudson back. I'm sure he misses you."

If that didn't do it Red didn't know what would.

Lizzie cracked. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the little mutt like crazy."

"And now you don't have to." Red crossed his feet in front of him and pretended to study his shoes, giving Lizzie time to come up with a way to say yes that didn't sound like she was caving.

"Fine."

The urge to gloat was almost unbearable, but Red stamped it down. It could wait until she was actually moved into the apartment.

"But you have to do something for me."

Damn.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/n: You can just go ahead and think of that voice on Spongebob Squarepants when you see "2 hours later". Lord knows I did.**

**Warnings: Casual drug use, sexual themes, and Lizzie says "fuck" a lot.**

**Someone suggested that I bold my author's notes. This will take some getting used to.**

**Thanks for the reviews and favorites and follows and the general support of the lovely Lizzington Shippers!**

**I own nothing.**

"Absolutely not."

"Come on, Red. Do it."

The pair sat on the bed of Lizzie's motel room, embroiled in a heated game of yes/no. Red played with vigor, but with a pretty good idea of who the winner was going to be.

"Don't tell me you've never done it before."

"Yes I've done it before, but I'm not doing it now," Red argued, eyeing the joint Lizzie was holding out to him suspiciously. "I'm a man with many enemies, Lizzie. Best I keep control of all my faculties. Just in case."

Lizzie rolled her eyes, looking for all the world like a bratty teenager, which Red highly suspected she had been. "The words 'Navajo Tacos' spring to mind. I doubt you were in control of anything then." Moving to sit closer to him, Lizzie crossed her legs Indian-style, pulling Red's attention to the strip of fabric that barely covered her ass, much less anything else. "And you had no fewer enemies than you do today."

"But those enemies weren't actively trying to kill me. It was more like they wouldn't pass up the opportunity to put a bullet in my head." Red tugged on his hat, letting himself be lulled by the false sense of security it gave him. If someone wanted to blow his head off, a hat wouldn't hinder them, but it was still nice to have some coverage. "These enemies are different. I've pissed them off by taking up with the likes of you, and now they've made my demise their priority." He winced as Lizzie delivered a sharp blow to his arm.

"The likes of me? What's that supposed to mean?"

Red chuckled as he reached over to light the joint Lizzie placed at her lips, his self-appointed job. "FBI. I'm playing with the right side of the law, and the right side of the law doesn't like it. Go figure."

Inhaling deeply, Lizzie reached over a baffled Red to make a grab for his hat, pouting when he ducked out of her grasp. "Let me seeeeee!"

Maybe he should have smoked the joint, if only to get it away from her.

"See with your eyes. What has gotten into you today?"

Flouncing back onto the bed, her legs still crossed, Lizzie sighed. "Nostalgia. I used to do this all the time, you know."

No, Red didn't know.

"Really? Somehow I must have missed that in all of Sam's letters."

"Yeah. Back when I had a life. Back before Tom… Hey! Sam wrote you letters?" The idea apparently bothered Lizzie, and Red couldn't blame her. It was a strange situation that brought the two of them together, and she only knew bits and pieces of the story. "Were they about me?"

Red smirked. "Well they weren't ALL about you. Conceited. But yes, you were usually the primary subject."

She was always the primary subject.

"What did Sam tell you about me?" Lizzie asked, leaning up on her elbows to gaze at him searchingly. Her eyes were starting to hold a certain glassy look and Red briefly considered derailing her train of thought. It wouldn't have been hard, but it also wouldn't have been kind. She deserved to hear how much her adoptive father loved her, though she had surely always felt it.

"He said…that you were smart and kind and the most beautiful little girl he'd ever seen. Even when you weren't a little girl anymore." Red leaned back on the bed and propped himself up on his elbows. "He was very proud of you. So was I."

Tears glistened at the corners of Lizzie's eyes, and for a moment, Red thought she might sob. Instead, she turned to a different coping mechanism. "Fuck. It's almost gone," she complained, holding up the joint she had managed to demolish in the half hour he'd been there. "That sucks."

"That truly sucks," Red grinned. "Now I can't smoke it with you."

Lizzie's intense gaze wiped the grin off his face. "Blow me a shotgun," she almost whispered, as if she had found the secret of life and shared it with him. She nodded furiously as he shook his head no. "Yes. A shotgun. It's the perfect size." Seriously, as serious as he'd ever seen her, she took his hand and placed the last bit of the joint in his palm.

He really meant to say no.

His fingers shook as he lit what he could of the joint and took a slow hit. The smoke burned down his throat and around his lungs and he thought he might explode…but suddenly there was Lizzie and she was _everywhere, _pulling him up until he was sitting again and straddling his thighs, taking the joint from his mouth and replacing the lit end precariously between his teeth. "Blow," she commanded, and he did. It didn't occur to him until much later that it wasn't really necessary that she press against him, chest to chest, hips grinding together, or that their lips touch as he exhaled into her hot mouth. His head swam as she leaned back, the hands on his shoulders the only thing keeping her from falling onto the floor. "Yessss!" she hissed, bouncing in her seat and making Red's face blush a nice shade of crimson. "Fuck, that was intense!" Rubbing his shoulders in a lazy massage, she grinned. "I'm gonna roll another one."

Red groaned, too preoccupied with trying to hide the raging erection Lizzie had left behind when she vacated his lap to care that she had stolen his hat and was arranging it on her own head, tilting it until it almost covered one eye and giggling at herself in the mirror.

"Exactly how much pot do you have in this room?"

Lizzie smirked. "Enough." Satisfied with the picture she made in Red's fedora, she made her way over to the nightstand and opened the top drawer to retrieve rolling paper and a baggie stuffed full of weed. Red searched for the right words as she seated herself at the small table and set out to roll the largest joint Red had ever seen.

"Lizzie, I can't…"

"Red, if you want me to set foot near that over-priced, over-plushed, gilded cage on top of the Audrey, you will shut up and smoke this with me," Lizzie said firmly, her voice raised slightly, sounding more like herself than she had all evening. "Those are my stipulations. Let loose with me. Just this once." She wiggled her eyebrows and ran the tip of her tongue over the paper, reviving the erection that Red had finally managed to calm down.

She would be the death of him.

Wrapping his coat tighter around him, he stood and held out his hand. "Give it to me." Lizzie squealed and did just that.

This was a bad, bad idea.

TBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBL

Two hours later…

"I can't even move right now. I am literally stuck to this bed."

"I could move, but who would want to?" Red lay stoned, flat on his back on the uncomfortable bed in the dingy motel room, next to an equally stoned Lizzie. "Such lovely patterns in the ceiling." Handing the newly rolled joint back to Lizzie, he gazed up at the dotted ceiling over their heads and set to work on pushing the sleeves of his white dress shirt up his forearms, his coat, jacket, tie, and vest long ago discarded. "It is hot in here though. Stifling, almost."

There was a sharp inhale and exhale to his right. "So hot," Lizzie agreed. "It's like a fucking sauna."

"You know, I thought you'd gone a little touched in the head when you answered the door in your underwear, but now I understand." The memory of Lizzie splayed in the doorway in her underwear for all the world to see made Red smile. "Now I understand that you were burning up. It was a smart move. You were wise to take your clothes off."

"I can honestly say that no one has ever said that to me before."

"What?"

Turning over and propping on her elbows, Lizzie scooted a little closer to Red. "That I was wise to take my clothes off. Usually when I take my clothes off I get into trouble." Her fingers reached out to awkwardly finger the buttons of Red's shirt. "But if it was a good idea this time, maybe you should be wise too. You're wearing an undershirt and a shirt. Too many layers."

Trying hard to follow her stilted thoughts and failing, Red finally got the point when he felt his shirt being tugged out of his pants. Ignoring the annoying little voice that persisted in the very back of his mind that told him he was walking too close to the edge, he helped Lizzie free his shirt and even unbuttoned it for her, sighing in relief when the only thing on his chest was his thin undershirt.

"See?" Lizzie giggled. "Much better." She giggled again before the giggle turned into a sigh of her own. "I'm hungry. I wonder if this place has room service."

"If it did I wouldn't let you eat it." Red craned his neck, looking around the room for a phone book. "Maybe there's somewhere around here that delivers. I could eat a whole pizza myself…"

"Ooooh!" Lizzie exclaimed, launching herself into a kneeling position and beaming down at a startled Red. "I know where we can get food!"

Looking up at her eager face, Red couldn't help but smile back. "Where?"

"The Audrey!"

Rolling his eyes, Red affectionately patted Lizzie's hand. "The Audrey is not a restaurant, Sweetheart."

"I know that! Of course I know that. I'm high, not stupid." Lizzie rose from the bed and ransacked the nightstand, clearing out the pot and many different devices used to smoke the pot. Red was truly impressed with the pipe in the shape of a dragon. Lizzie apparently knew what she was doing. "You said it was move-in ready! I'm assuming that means food?"

Red nodded. "Fully stocked fridge and pantry. If I'm going to provide you with shelter I might as well feed you too." He ignored the middle finger Lizzie offered him and rose from the bed as well, fighting the urge to just fall back onto it. Standing, he barely caught Lizzie as she tried to walk past him and out the door, still clad in only her underwear and a tank top, hands full of paraphernalia. "Hold on… I think you're forgetting something." Gathering his clothes over his arm and wrapping his coat around her, he freed her hands and stuffed her goodies in the pockets, not letting her budge until he helped her ease her arms through the arms of the coat.

"Alright," he grinned, plopping his hat down on her adorably messy hair. "Let's go see your new home."


	3. Chapter 3

**a/n: So I know I said three chapters only…but I extended it to four. I wanted Dembe to have his moment. Poor Dembe…getting left behind while Red and Lizzie go off on adventures. **

**I own nothing. Sad for me.**

**Enjoy!**

"Honey! I'm home!"

Lizzie's voice rang throughout the extravagant apartment, garnering an amused look from Red and a glare from an already pissed off Dembe.

"Funny sentiment coming from a woman who just hours ago swore she would never set foot in this place," Dembe grumbled, locking the door and settling himself on the plush white couch that was the centerpiece of the living room.

"Don't be such a grouch, Dembe." Red parked himself on the other side of the couch, watching with rapt attention as Lizzie made her way through the room, wandering from thing to thing, exploring her new home. His interest grew even greater when she left the living room and climbed the three steps up to the kitchen. Feeling his stomach groan and growl, he called out to her as she began to pull out the ingredients for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. "Fix me one too, if you will. What about you, Dembe? Hungry?"

"No. I didn't spend hours holed up in a motel room smoking everything but the kitchen sink."

A small giggle floated down to the living room from the kitchen. "The motel didn't have a kitchen sink!" Lizzie offered gleefully, studying the big glob of peanut butter that hung precariously from the end of her butter knife. Red crinkled his nose and feared for his coat. He didn't know what it took to get peanut butter out of wool, but he had a feeling he was about to find out.

"If I would have been pulled over with number four on the Most Wanted list and an FBI agent carrying hundreds of dollars' worth of marijuana, I would have lost my license," Dembe growled, crossing his arms over his broad chest and pouting.

Lizzie nearly choked on her peanut butter. "What do you care? You run around with Raymond Reddington and shoot people! What does it matter if you lose your license?"

"Do you know how long you have to wait in line at the DMV to get your license renewed?" Dembe asked. Red and Lizzie exchanged looks but nodded, trying to pacify their irate friend. "A long time. Do you know how long you have to wait to get your license reinstated? An even longer time. I don't have time for that shit."

Again Red and Lizzie exchanged incredulous looks.

"So were you smoking something in the car while Lizzie and I were smoking in the motel?" Red asked, furrowing his brow in confusion.

"No," Dembe replied, obviously put out.

Lizzie took a bite out of her sandwich. "Dembe, do you want some pot?" she inquired around a mouthful of peanut butter and bread.

"I cannot believe it's taken you this long to ask me. Rude."

Red watched with barely concealed astonishment as Lizzie emptied out her pockets onto the counter. He hadn't realized as she was packing it how much she was packing. How in the world did she get her hands on so much marijuana? One hand held the half-eaten sandwich and the other hand went to work rolling another humongous joint.

"No. Let me do it." Dembe scooted Lizzie out of the way and resumed the task with ease. Many years of practice and deft hands produced a perfect joint in seconds, and Liz grinned as she munched on her sandwich, thoroughly impressed.

"You did that awfully fast."

"I am an expert. You are an amateur. But thank you very much for the weed." Giving Lizzie a rare smile, Dembe retreated to the dining room table and pulled out his personal phone, set on making himself invisible.

He was good at that.

Red, on the other hand, was not used to being ignored.

"I'll take a sandwich now," he commanded imperiously, waving his hand in Lizzie's general direction. "Whatever you feel like fixing, though that peanut butter and jelly does look delici..." He felt a lot less imperious with a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich shoved in his mouth.

"There," Lizzie said, flopping down beside him and placing her head on his shoulder. "Peanut butter and jelly. Specially made, just for you. I stole a few bites, hope you don't mind."

Red never minded anything less.

He pulled the sandwich out of his mouth and tossed it on the coffee table, pretending to be put out. Peanut butter clung to his lips, but he refused to smack it away. Not with her so close. Instead he attempted discretion, trying some fancy movements with the tip of his tongue.

"What's wrong?"

Discretion and narcotics did not mix.

"Just some peanut butter from the messiest sandwich in the world stuck to my lip. I'm dealing."

"Oh," Lizzie giggled, turning towards him. He tried to ignore the swell of her breasts against his arm, he really did. "I'll get it." Fingers brushed over his lips, and his tongue naturally drifted towards them, earning a gasp and an increase in pressure as she wiped the peanut butter from his lips with her thumb and licked it away with her tongue.

Red moaned. "I feel like I should thank you for that."

"You should. I don't do that for everyone."

"Will you two get a room?"

Dembe.

Within a matter of moments, Red had completely forgotten that they weren't alone.

Lizzie was dangerous.

"Raymond, if you two are in for the night I would like to pay Nancy a visit. I've been putting her off and she's growing impatient." Dembe's phone disappeared into his pocket and he started gathering his things, already sure of Red's approval.

Red always approved of getting laid.

Nodding at Dembe as he exited the apartment, Red turned to Lizzie, answering the question that hadn't yet left her lips. "Nancy is Dembe's girlfriend."

Lizzie's jaw dropped in surprise. "Girlfriend?"

"Don't look so shocked. Dembe's a handsome man."

"Of course he is!" Lizzie stammered, fiddling with the buttons on Red's coat, still wrapped around her body despite the warmth of the room. "I just meant that in his line of work…"

"Romantic relationships aren't a good idea."

It wasn't a question.

Lizzie stiffened. "I just don't think it's a good idea to get attached to someone and then up and leave them. You two travel the world on a whim… where does a romance fit into that?"

She had to hit him with the deep questions. This was his punishment for swearing to always tell Lizzie the truth. She would always ask the hard questions, and he would always be searching for loopholes.

"It doesn't. Not usually."

He forgot to look for the loophole.

"You know what?" Lizzie stood hastily and slipped the coat off onto the couch, baring her scantily clad body to Red once more. "This is getting heavy and I'm tired of heavy."

She wasn't talking about the coat.

"In fact, Dembe left his freakishly perfect joint on the table and I think it deserves to be enjoyed properly." Lizzie walked on clumsy legs to the dining room table and picked up the joint, smiling as she measured it alongside her finger. Red smiled to himself as he watched her every move. She was adorable this way, carefree and determined to stay that way. He could indulge this habit…just this once.

Of course he was still pretty high himself, and coming down was something he never enjoyed.

"Need some help?" he teased, pulling a lighter from seemingly nowhere and flicking it on and off while Lizzie scowled. She straightened her back and moved to stand in front of him, hands on her hips and a smirk on her pretty lips.

"I need quite a few things, actually."

Red was all ears.

"This feels familiar. Go head, twist the handle."

Lizzie tried and failed to stop the grin from spreading over her face. "First, I want you to light this." She held the joint to his lips and he lit it, taking a slow drag before she took it back. "Now… I want a tour."

"A tour?" Red crinkled his nose as smoke wafted into his nostrils.

"Yeah. I want the grand tour. Nooks and crannies and closet space. If I'm going to live here it's got to pass inspection."

Red stored that particular smartass remark away for later use.

"Fine, Lizzie. We'll take the grand tour. Then you can tell me where you got the drugs."

Lizzie's face paled and Red grinned.

"_Gotcha."_


End file.
